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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Javascript Build Tools
  5. Parcel vs rollup

Parcel vs rollup

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

rollup
rollup
Stacks2.4K
Followers164
Votes17
Parcel
Parcel
Stacks874
Followers250
Votes18
GitHub Stars44.0K
Forks2.3K

Parcel vs rollup: What are the differences?

Introduction: When comparing Parcel and Rollup, it is crucial to understand the key differences between these build tools to choose the one that best suits your project requirements.

  1. Bundle Size Optimization: Parcel focuses on zero-config setup and automatically includes necessary optimizations out of the box, resulting in larger bundle sizes but with less configuration required. On the other hand, Rollup offers more fine-grained control over the bundling process, allowing developers to optimize bundle size more efficiently by eliminating dead code and tree-shaking.

  2. Tree-shaking: Rollup is known for its superior tree-shaking capabilities, meaning it can eliminate unused code more effectively than Parcel. This results in smaller bundle sizes and improved runtime performance in applications built with Rollup.

  3. Extensibility and Plugins: Rollup provides a plugin system that allows developers to extend its functionality and customize the build process to fit specific project requirements. In contrast, Parcel offers a simpler approach without the need for extensive configuration or plugin management, making it more beginner-friendly.

  4. Build Time Performance: Rollup is generally faster in terms of build times compared to Parcel, especially in projects with a large codebase. This advantage can significantly impact developer productivity by reducing the waiting time for the build process to complete.

  5. Code Splitting: Rollup excels in code splitting capabilities, enabling developers to split their code into smaller, more manageable chunks that can be loaded on-demand. This can lead to improved loading times and better performance in applications with dynamic module loading requirements.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Rollup has a more established community with a wide range of plugins and resources available, making it easier to find solutions to common problems and leverage best practices. In contrast, Parcel's community is smaller but growing, which can impact the availability of support and resources for more specific use cases.

In Summary, understanding the key differences such as bundle size optimization, tree-shaking capabilities, extensibility, build time performance, code splitting, and community support can help in choosing between Parcel and Rollup for your project.

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Advice on rollup, Parcel

Abigail
Abigail

Dec 10, 2019

Decided

We mostly use rollup to publish package onto NPM. For most all other use cases, we use the Meteor build tool (probably 99% of the time) for publishing packages. If you're using Node on FHIR you probably won't need to know rollup, unless you are somehow working on helping us publish front end user interface components using FHIR. That being said, we have been migrating away from Atmosphere package manager towards NPM. As we continue to migrate away, we may publish other NPM packages using rollup.

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Detailed Comparison

rollup
rollup
Parcel
Parcel

It is a module bundler for JavaScript which compiles small pieces of code into something larger and more complex, such as a library or application. It uses the new standardized format for code modules included in the ES6 revision of JavaScript, instead of previous idiosyncratic solutions such as CommonJS and AMD.

Parcel is a web application bundler, differentiated by its developer experience. It offers blazing fast performance utilizing multicore processing, and requires zero configuration.

-
Blazing fast bundle times; Bundle all your assets; Automatic transforms; Zero config code splitting; Hot module replacement; Friendly error logging
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
44.0K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
2.3K
Stacks
2.4K
Stacks
874
Followers
164
Followers
250
Votes
17
Votes
18
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 4
    Makes it easy to publish packages
  • 3
    Easier configuration
  • 2
    Better tree shaking
  • 2
    Provides smaller bundle size
  • 1
    Very flexible
Cons
  • 1
    Almost everything needs to be a Plugin
  • 1
    No Loader like Webpack (need to use sjs or ESM imports)
  • 1
    No clear path for static assets
  • 1
    Manual Chunking is a bit buggy
Pros
  • 10
    Zero configuration
  • 8
    Built-in dev server with livereload
Cons
  • 3
    Lack of documentation
Integrations
No integrations available
JavaScript
JavaScript

What are some alternatives to rollup, Parcel?

gulp

gulp

Build system automating tasks: minification and copying of all JavaScript files, static images. More capable of watching files to automatically rerun the task when a file changes.

Webpack

Webpack

A bundler for javascript and friends. Packs many modules into a few bundled assets. Code Splitting allows to load parts for the application on demand. Through "loaders" modules can be CommonJs, AMD, ES6 modules, CSS, Images, JSON, Coffeescript, LESS, ... and your custom stuff.

Grunt

Grunt

The less work you have to do when performing repetitive tasks like minification, compilation, unit testing, linting, etc, the easier your job becomes. After you've configured it, a task runner can do most of that mundane work for you—and your team—with basically zero effort.

Brunch

Brunch

Brunch is an assembler for HTML5 applications. It's agnostic to frameworks, libraries, programming, stylesheet & templating languages and backend technology.

Backpack

Backpack

Backpack is minimalistic build system for Node.js. Inspired by Facebook's create-react-app, Zeit's Next.js, and Remy's Nodemon, Backpack lets you create modern Node.js apps and services with zero configuration. Backpack handles all the file-watching, live-reloading, transpiling, and bundling, so you don't have to.

Vite

Vite

It is an opinionated web dev build tool that serves your code via native ES Module imports during dev and bundles it with Rollup for production.

Pingy CLI

Pingy CLI

Gulp and Grunt and other heavyweight build tools are great for complicated build workflows. Sometimes you want something simpler that doesn't take lots of configuration to get up and running. That's Pingy CLI.

Microbundle

Microbundle

Zero-configuration bundler for tiny modules, powered by Rollup.

System.js

System.js

It is a Universal Module Loader for JavaScript. If you've used RequireJs or a CommonJs bundler in the past, you have probably created modules.Configurable module loader enabling dynamic ES module workflows in browsers and NodeJS.

Esbuild

Esbuild

It is an extremely fast JavaScript and CSS bundler and minifier. Current build tools for the web are 10-100x slower than they could be. The main goal of this project is to bring about a new era of build tool performance, and create an easy-to-use modern bundler along the way.

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